


Anything to Declare?

by thatsrightdollface



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Happy Birthday Kaito!!!, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 04:57:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18439502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface
Summary: Kaito is contacted by someone he hasn’t seen in a long, long time when he and his crew take their starship just past Earth.  They were only trying to pick up some quick work at a space station, but it seems like Kaito MIGHT have other plans, now.





	Anything to Declare?

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there!!! I hope you enjoy this story if you read it~ I’ve been thinking about doing a space AU for a long time... And I definitely wanted to do a thing for Kaito's birthday this year... So what better occasion??? Sorry for anything I might’ve messed up! Please, have a great day.

Kaito Momota was the only human on the ship, so when their dang communicator screen crackled to life somewhere near Earth he got shoved unceremoniously right up in front of it.  Kaito smoothed down his rumpled shirt, and that burgundy jacket he liked to wear with constellations from the other side of the galaxy embroidered all over the inside and close to his skin, flickering slightly all the time.  That coat was like a window into a distant sky – it changed its pattern with the turning of stars around the planet where he’d bought it.

One of Kaito’s shipmates – the smuggler and _very wanted_ revolutionary gang leader, Kokichi Oma – grinned hugely and gave him an enthusiastic thumbs-up from his spot under one of the ship’s piloting tables.  If Kaito waved back or shushed him or something, his first impression here would be talking to some furniture…  Probably exactly what Kokichi was going for, now that he thought about it.  Shuichi Saihara, on the other hand, just waved politely from his seat at the other side of the ship.  It was Shuichi’s job to monitor readings of everything they passed, mostly just to make sure it wasn’t something that was out to kill them or suck them into an alternate dimension or whatever.  Harvest their souls to power bio-ships; grab them up to plug into big machines so they could fight some war on the astral plane.  Any of that.  Shuichi was especially good at finding mysteries, though only some of those mysteries resulted in actual…  You know…  Money.

Kaito and his crew had been going by Earth to try and pick up a job at one of the orbiting space stations, actually.  Not one of the glitzier stations like Celestia’s House of Cards – notorious gambling empire – or that glittery queen and her self-proclaimed “Dark Lord” of an alien consort’s Novoselic Kingdom II, but something a little off the radar.  Kokichi didn’t exactly have valid Earth paperwork, did he?  Nevermind that his species had been at war with Earth pretty much ever since humans had started climbing out beyond their solar system.  It’d taken Kaito a while to trust that behind Kokichi’s forked tongue and checkerboard-painted claws there was a guy who genuinely did want to see their whole damn galaxy at peace.  Kokichi’d drawl about how the battles _sure were_ sparkly and exciting sometimes, which didn’t help anything, but…  But Kaito got that Kokichi liked putting on an act, by now.  The uncertainty he inspired in people was like a second mask, besides the one he wore just day-to-day during his revolution-style escapades.  That mask was in Kokichi’s chest at the back of their ship, tucked away with a lot of candy, just then.  Candy, board games, explosives and a bunch of shirts with interdimensionally famous cartoon characters on them.

Kokichi and Shuichi went way, way back.  Something about taking down a murder-game reality show together?  Kaito wouldn’t have turned away his sidekick’s criminal boyfriend, though, no way, no matter how many times Kokichi messed with his maps or pranked him while he was asleep.  ( _Kokichi’s_ species only slept once every ten Earth years, he’d claimed.  Kaito still wasn’t sure if this was a lie or not.  He knew Kokichi generally let Shuichi fall asleep on him while they watched holo-movies, though, and had never once fallen asleep himself.  Sometimes Kokichi brushed his claws so soft and slow through Shuichi’s hair it looked like he was genuinely afraid to break skin.  Shuichi’s species had such thin skin, generally, under light, soft feathers.  There were glossy, full-grown dark feathers mixed in with Shuichi’s hair, but his wings had been bound so often when he was young he could still just barely, barely fly.)

Anyway, it had been Kokichi who shoved Kaito in front of the screen when those Earth-authorities came a-calling, just before he ducked out of sight.  Kaito cleared his throat and prepared to ask what they wanted.  Politely, of course.  He would introduce himself – Captain Kaito Momota of the good ship _Luminary of the Stars_! – and he would swear up and down that he had all the right paperwork to be back in Earth-space even if he was pretty sure it actually wasn’t up-to-date.  They might have to make a run for it, if somebody asked to do a mind-scan.  You’d think having been born on freaking Earth Kaito wouldn’t have to fill out any more paperwork, but that’s galactic bureaucracy for ya.  Anyway, he wasn’t gonna give Kokichi up to any government people _now_ , not on either side of the war.  He could just imagine how Shuichi’s face would close off, like fortress walls slamming themselves shut again; he could imagine how furious and probably-revenge-oriented Kokichi’s prison journal would be.

Kaito didn’t exactly get around to introducing himself, though.  He started in with a boisterous, “ _Hello there, Earth!_   I’m back – Captain Kai… –” but then he’d trailed off.  Coughed into his arm.

Kaito knew the woman on the screen.  She was so painfully familiar it burned in his chest, sort of like the illness that had sent him beyond Earth’s galactic reach in the first place.  A disease he’d been looking for a cure for, so long ago – a disease he’d kept pretty much shoved to the back of his mind thanks to experimental, probably-illegal space pills.  He’d never completely, honestly explained that disease to this woman, even though he’d wanted to.  He’d drifted further and further away, back then, keeping so many secrets until finally she’d told him, you know what, maybe she didn’t know him after all.  Maybe they were better off going their separate ways for a while.

Kaito hadn’t wanted to worry her, back then.  He’d told himself he could sort it out and maybe they’d laugh about it someday.  But, enough of that, now.  They’d been practically engaged, and he should have…  Shit.  He knew he’d screwed up.  He’d explained it all to Kokichi and Shuichi, just once, when he was drunk out of his mind on a certain incredibly potent slimy purple sugar-liquor Kokichi’s species brewed.  Kokichi’d chirped, “Yeah, you fucked up, Cap’n!” too, though he’d also been a little gentler with Kaito that night.  Sung Earth-song karaoke with him, even if he thought the lyrics were dumb.  Patiently walked Kaito through his favorite card game’s rules for the billionth time without insulting his intelligence _too_ many times.

“I thought you were dead,” said the woman on the screen, her voice like black ice on the middle of a paved Earth road.  “ _Captain_.”

“It’s good to see you, Maki-roll,” Kaito said.  He was dragging an old, old nickname out of his head, like taking clothes from a dresser drawer to air out after years of dust.  It felt funny in his mouth.  He saw Kokichi whisper the word, _“Maki-roll?!”_ to Shuichi from his spot under the table.  Shuichi nodded grimly.  He had seen the pictures in Kaito’s wallet, after all, before it got torched in an undersea volcano during the course of one of those mysteries Shuichi was so good at finding.

Maki’s hair was braided back into a complicated bun at the nape of her neck, now, and she was wearing dark lipstick Kaito thought he would have remembered if she’d ever slipped it on back in the day.  His eyes flicked down to the nametag on her uniform coat.  He tried again, “It’s good to see you, Flight Commander Harukawa.  Wow.  Really climbed up the – ah – company ladder, huh?”

Maki Harukawa took a deep breath.  She shook her head.  When she smiled, it was shakier than Kaito had expected.  He took a half-step back.  “It was good to see your ship’s readings come up, too, Captain Momota.  No one – no one has heard from you for years.  Now.  Do you have anything to declare, entering Earth-space?”

Kaito hadn’t been back to Earth since his grandfather’s funeral.  He hadn’t seen Maki then – he’d stuck around his grandfather’s hospital room, mostly, except for when he’d given Shuichi an abbreviated tour of his hometown.  It’d been really something, seeing his grandmother shake Shuichi’s lightly feathered hand.  Rolling his eyes and leaning back against the hospital wall, sitting by as his grandfather showed off some of his baby pictures.  Smiling gently to himself.  His grandmother was still alive and kicking, though – Kaito’d chatted with her just that morning, while he was making everybody breakfast.  She and both his crewmates were on a first name basis, nowadays, actually.

There were people milling around behind Maki, in the shiny office she was calling from.  She was wearing a string of inky pearls around her neck, only slightly obscuring the purplish lightning strike of scars along her shoulder and collarbone.  From an attack by Kokichi’s homeworld, those.  They still crackled sometimes, if Maki tried to move too quickly.

For a second, Kaito had trouble remembering why they’d even come here.  Picking up quick work at a space station, what?  Easy in-and-out mission…  But why?

There were windows behind Maki, too, huge polished windows showing off a courtyard full of dripping trees, with a fountain catching in the buttery-soft light of Earth’s single sun.  Kaito remembered what that sun might feel like on his skin – what a breeze might feel like in his hair, what Maki’s hand might feel like slipped into the crook of his arm – and he shivered.  Looked away.

“Nope,” he said.  “Nothing to declare.  Maybe some liquor?”

Liquor was legal and Kaito knew it.  His “wide-eyed innocent” thing might fool some of Maki’s coworkers, but he saw her eyebrows furrow.  That’s right.  She thought she knew better than to trust him, didn’t she?”

Maki could likely order an inspection of Kaito’s ship, just now, if she wanted to.  He knew what the title on her badge meant.  She could order a scan of his brain and pick out all his little infractions one by one.  Kokichi would call that kind of thing “disgusting tyranny,” and honestly Kaito would agree with him.  But still…  Flight Commander Harukawa _could_ try for it, if she thought it would be right.

Instead Maki said, “If that’s all, then we will expect a scan of your paperwork presently.  Good day, Captain.”

Kaito nodded, feeling like there was something else he _should_ say – he tapped a hand against his leg, restless, wondering if he was gonna have to forge the right date on his paperwork again, and if that’d even fool anybody this time.

But then, a funny thing happened.  Just as Maki glanced down to turn off her transmission, Kaito’s voice snuck out from underneath the table where Kokichi was hiding.  Damn roguish trickster revolutionary-types and their voice modulation software.

“Maki-roll, wait!” Kaito’s voice said.  “If you’re not too busy, do you wanna get dinner tonight?  Or something.  My treat.  I’m definitely not broke and planning to borrow cash from one of my super-generous friends!”

That wasn’t how Kaito talked – and he _hoped Maki knew it_ – but she didn’t call bullshit right away.  She stared back at him for a long second.  Took in the coat with alien stars burning inside the fabric; took in the stubble on his cheeks, the slippers he wore around the ship.  The strange bruised stains that medicine he was taking had left down his throat – um, still not sure what that _particular_ side effect was doing long-term.

Maki laughed, just softly, just a choke of laughter almost like a muffled sob.  She covered up her nametag with long, slim fingers.

“Well…  Mm.  Alright, Kaito.  As long as your ‘super-generous’ friends don’t mind…  If you contact me when I’m off-duty, maybe we can work something out.”

“We _can_? _”_ Kaito breathed, around the same time as Kokichi said, “They don’t mind, so long as I trade them chores.  And fancy Earth sodas.”

Maki snickered – a snicker like old times, almost! – and told him her new contact information.  She leaned forward and whispered it, actually, with the hand that wasn’t covering up her nametag cupped around her mouth.  Kaito scribbled her new info on his arm with a pen.  He could’ve typed it into the ship’s computer, sure.  Could have.

“I’m…  Glad you aren’t actually dead,” Maki told him.  Her voice sounded small and far away.  Hardly an angry official-stranger voice at all.  “There were _rumors_ …”

“We have a lot to talk about,” Kaito offered.  Even if he’d tried for his normal confident voice, just then, he didn’t think he would’ve been able to throw it on like one of Kokichi’s masks.  “I have a lot to tell you.  That okay?”

“It is,” Maki said.  She’d never been one to mince words, really.

Maki ended the transmission, and Kaito let out a breath.  Slumped against Kokichi’s piloting table hiding spot.  Kokichi reached up and patted his hand as soon as the screen went completely dark.  Teasing, probably.  Or at least, mostly teasing.

“Should I write you a script, or d’you think you can remember all your lines?” Kokichi asked.

And, “I’ll…  Tweak our paperwork, a bit,” Shuichi offered, standing up and shaking out his wings.  They had scars all along them from how they’d been bound, and they still stretched out sort of crooked.  He seemed to handle them more confidently, lately, though.  Just what Kaito’d expect from his sidekick.  No single day went by where Kaito didn’t tell Shuichi he was proud of him, somehow...  Kaito was damn sure of that.  He’d been keeping track for ages.

Kaito glanced down at the scribbles on his arm, and said, “I guess I’m going to Earth.  Should I…  Bring a gift?”

“Oh, definitely,” said Kokichi.  “You humans seem to love gifts.  And we should clean off a bunk, just in case she decides to run away from that nasty government job and come to space with us!”

As usual, Kaito couldn’t _completely_ tell if his crewmate was messing with him.  They cleaned off a bunk all the same, though.  Just in case.


End file.
